When October arrives on the calendar, the grove comes alive with autumn festivities. The squirrels throw a grand feast and invite all the forest animals to join them.
They set a table right in the middle of the trees and decorate it with all sorts of treats and beautiful autumn decorations. For example, you can see hazelnuts, walnuts, pinecones, and rowanberries there, as well as hot rosehip jam and stewed pears.
All the animals always look forward to the feast. But it wasn’t always that way.
A few years ago, the squirrels held their first feast. They spread the word all over the forest. The birds flew far and wide, announcing: “Today the squirrels are inviting everyone to a big autumn feast. All the little animals are welcome!”
When the others heard this, they rejoiced. The little animals were very excited to get together, eat well, and have fun together. Plus, everyone wanted to bring something and contribute to the feast. So the hedgehogs skewered autumn apples on their quills, the badgers found the tastiest mushrooms, and the foxes carried rose hips and rowan berries. The forest was filled with rustling, scurrying, and pattering. Every little animal was looking forward to the feast and tried to reach the squirrels’ big table on time.
Even the bears wanted to come – a grand farewell before they would retreat to their dens for the long winter sleep. The bears had been looking forward to it all year—after all, they needed one final big meal to fill their bellies! But as they crawled toward the squirrels, they heard something that frightened them. Birds were flying overhead, chattering to one another: “Did you hear that there will be stewed bears at the feast? That’ll be wonderful. Yum, that’ll be a treat.”
When the bears heard this, they froze and stopped. “That can’t be. They want to eat stewed bears there. What are we going to do? We’re not going there!” the bears decided, turned around, and began crawling back. That afternoon, when everyone sat down to the feast, the little animals couldn’t stop praising what a wonderful idea it had been. The squirrels were delighted that so many animals had come.
But then the badger said, “Has anyone seen the bears? They were so looking forward to it, and now they’re not here. Does anyone know what happened to them?” “No, I have no idea,” one animal said over another. “Let’s go find them and bring them to the feast, come on,” the badger decided. And so, before the feast began, the animals set out to find the bears.
It didn’t take long to find them. Out of every small cave and from behind every thick bush, there was a huge, shaky, fluffy bear bottom sticking out.
Now, you might wonder: how could huge, strong bears be afraid of anything in the first place? Well, it was late autumn, and the bears were already so incredibly sleepy that their brains weren’t working quite right. When they had overheard earlier that “stewed bears” were on the menu, they completely forgot about their sharp claws and loud roars. They only thought of one thing: running away!
The badger called out to them: “Hello! Bears! Come on out! What’s going on? Why didn’t you come to the squirrels’ feast with us?”
The bears slowly backed out of their hiding places. At first, they just shuffled their paws nervously and didn’t want to say why they hadn’t come. But then, they finally came clean.
“We heard that you’re going to be serving stewed bears there,” one of them whimpered. “And we don’t want to be eaten!”
At first, the badger didn’t understand. But then, it dawned on him. “Bears, you silly things! You are the biggest animals in the forest, who could possibly stew you? The host didn’t say he was baking BEARS, he said he was baking PEARS! Delicious, sweet autumn pears! Come on, you can enjoy the feast with us.”
The big fluffy bottoms stopped shaking. The bears looked at each other with great relief. They had been so terrified, but now they felt a bit silly.
Later that afternoon, everyone gathered for the big autumn feast. All the little animals ate their fill, had a nice chat together, and strengthened their friendships. And the bears? They learned that they shouldn’t believe everything they hear.
From that day on, they knew it was always better to ask what was really going on—after all, they almost missed out on a wonderful evening with their friends!
